


to be a person who knows nothing

by damnneovelvet



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Divorce, Gen, Implied Medical Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Lowercase, Minor Political Issues, Post-Break Up, Regrets, Uncontrollable Circumstances, ambiguous ending, past markhyuck - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26069260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnneovelvet/pseuds/damnneovelvet
Summary: yet another scream pierces through the night.
Relationships: Implied Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Liu Yang Yang, Kang Mina/Mark Lee (NCT), Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 10
Kudos: 24





	to be a person who knows nothing

**Author's Note:**

> first : this is a partly rewritten repost. all of this was written at the end of 2018 and hasn't been touched since.
> 
> second : this has no flowing plot. it's just one accident after another, the setting for a tragedy. 
> 
> third : this is not complete. but i'm marking it as complete because I don't know if I'll ever finish it. the scenes after this are pure angst and I do not wish to write those. 
> 
> fourth : if you have ANY triggers, do NOT read. thank you. I will still mention them, but they're scattered all over so it's best advised to leave while you can.
> 
> tw : blood, hospital, injury, implied abuse, implied body horror, implied trauma, implied depression, past internalised homophobia, death

####  ✢. 

I wish I were a marionette;

at least I would know

I am bound by strings,

strong and sharp,

visible and hooked 

into all of my joints.

I wish I were a marionette;

a real one, with

wooden limbs and cotton,

controlled and helpless

but not at the hands of

thin and frail,

invisible fate.

#### i.

lee donghyuck doesn’t know what to do.

he stands at the periphery of the reception hall. if he has to move further left, he might as well enter the wall. he might become a wall. walls don’t have emotions. they don’t have to hide their tears behind fancy embroidered handkerchiefs loaned by sympathetic old ladies. 

he is dressed in his best suit--one of his only suits--and that is more than enough explanation for where he stands today. reality is bitter. he doesn’t know why he ever imagined standing there, there in the place of the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on. there are diamonds on her neck, on her wrists, on her ankles. there are lilies in her hair and glitter dusted over her cheekbones. mina looks ethereal, always has, always will. 

he can’t see them from where he stands. doesn’t need to, he saw enough during the wedding. now he only needs space to pretend and to slip away before anyone notices.

donghyuck has never been materialistic. he has never fostered envy towards wealth. yet, as he thanks the greying woman and she presses him to keep the handkerchief, says he’s a lovable boy and that he should get some sleep tonight, he burns on the inside. he’s a have-not, and a have-not cannot claim the spot next to mark lee. it takes twenty seconds to walk to the exit. he looks back.

below the golden ceiling, it’s the newlyweds' first dance. mark’s eyes are sparkling as he looks out. they meet eyes for a brief moment. (his eyes lose their infamous sparkle) donghyuck smiles and then they’re both twirling.

white silk and chiffon whirl past the dance floor; elegant melancholy sways to the music. 

#### ii.

yet another scream pierces through the night. 

haechan hurries to shut the window tight as his roommate hastens to lock the door. he pulls at the heavy dark curtains, purposefully blocking themselves from view. the dormitory courtyard was no longer silent. heavy footsteps stomped down on brittle stone. screeches of tiny wheels being dragged over coarse gravel echoed all over.

"you don't think we'll be called in the middle of the night again, do you?" irene asks from where she lays down on their small bed, curled up against the only pillow. 

they have fastened all their locks--both provided and self-installed. they should be safe for the night.

"maybe. if they need...but we won’t let them." haechan whispers. his throat hurts, dry and a little scratchy from the weather. the temperature has been dropping steadily and they ran out of water about two hours ago. with their current situation, there was no choice but to wait till the sun rose. but less water also meant not having to crawl out to the bathroom. they could wait.

their heater had broken a week ago and both of them had been too busy to lodge a complaint. not that it would be replaced immediately. 

they would have the reassurance of not freezing at night but they have to go through the trouble to file a complaint. nobody knows where complaint reports go. the matron would find out, scold them and then wait another week till she allowed them to lug in another one from her office. haechan doesn't know if a week long of writing letters and filling forms only to end up begging the dorm in-charge to let them get an old, equally malfunctioning heater was going to be worth it. he doesn't even know if the process works, if they'll be allowed to take one. freezing was the only other option. 

frostbite would kill them before anything happened anyway. (not that the whole thing would be a kind ordeal, not with gunfire over his head and belt imprints on his back).

"i can't do this anymore, channie...the blood, the guts..." irene squeezes her eyes shut as her soft voice tapers off. closing her eyes makes little difference. the images are burnt onto the back of her eyelids. 

she never voiced her feelings outside their tiny shared bedroom. they weren't allowed to be vocal. voicing concern about having to stitch up severed arteries within a moment's notice at 4 am would just lead them to overwork you. you would be at their beck and call every second till you faint or die. worse, they could shift you from scientific intelligence to the military department. 

(“we don’t have enough people on the border”, they would spit, “feel lucky for whatever little education you have ungrateful rats. be grateful not everyone can sew back fingers.” haechan would tremble every time as they waved skewed fingers into their faces.)

"don’t speak, irene...let's wait. all we can do is wait. we’ll be fine." he says in a softer voice. irene feels the painfully thin mattress curve under haechan's weight and she turns around to hug his thighs, leaving the pillow unattended.

"i know. we've been waiting so long. just a little bit more won't hurt, right?" 

haechan runs a hand through her dark hair--cut to just graze over her shoulders. it is neat to the distant eye, but ragged if you look close enough, almost as if it was brutally pulled at and then chopped off. she reminds him of his mother.

"they'll let us all go. they promised. The contract ends soon doesn’t it..." he mutters, wrapping his arms around her slim frame. she's thinner than he remembers. blinking rapidly, he chases away tears that threaten to form in his eyes. as he takes a deep breath, his chest expands and contracts with dull pain shooting through the sides. 

“they sold us channie, sold us,” she mouths at the grey fabric of his shirt, “our own people sold us.”

“i hate them too.” he tightens his grip. she snuggles in closer, basking in his warmth. 

haechan was blessed to have irene with him. their other colleagues were all fine people as well (as fine as you can be when your life is hanging by a worn thread), but in irene, he found the older sibling he never had. he found a confidante and she treated him as if they were built of the same flesh, as if the same blood ran through their veins and he pondered about alternate universes where they really were related. he hopes they met as friends instead of being grouped together as prisoners of an illegal recruitment deal. they call it ‘the incident’.

he still remembers the night of said incident crystal clear and he can vouch that every other person in the building and in the biting cold outside remembers too. 

they had been scheduled for a meeting. an international science congregation where members of various departments gathered to learn, to research. haechan wasn’t an expected name on the guest list. he simply went in as a placeholder for his mentor. there were a hundred reasons why he flew there, all the way from seoul, to the heart of a stranger city where winter ran supreme. to run away maybe, to find solace in work and heal his little heart. he rubs irene's back. it is freezing cold in the middle of june. 

june. 

he opens his eyes, not realising when they had closed, and looks around for their small makeshift calendar (just papers put together with haphazardly drawn boxes and numbers filled in in irene's impeccable handwriting). freshly crossed out 7th june, he muses. he has missed his birthday. forgotten that he turned 25 years old less than 48 hours ago. was it because he had spent the past three days at the military building, tending to third degree burns and digging out bullets from torn stretches of deep seated tendon? most probably, he reasons. 

you don't remember things as trivial as birthdays when your life revolves around the number of patients you have to see or the horrifying consequences that lay in wait for you if you aren't capable enough over the operation table. he shakes on most days, knowing he would never be allowed to hold a scalpel if he were back in seoul.

it scares him. the thought that if he doesn't wear a mask and gloves, his untrained hands forcefully holding the lives of people he will never get the chance to know….he might have to become the one lying down under the lights, an equally shaky hand cutting him open to dispose of his cowardice.

he looks down to find irene asleep, soft breaths puffing against stray hair under the little moonlight that peeked through from a gap in the curtains. 

he allows himself a small smile and slides down carefully, hugging her a little closer because there is nothing that can remind him of home and comfort but his new elder sister. maybe he has something, something like a little home, but only for times when he has no grip on reality. 

footsteps shuffle past their door, and he sighs in relief as they don’t come running back. (he remembers the last time he was afraid of people at night. times when he would wait for his parents to slide into his room, only to realise it wasn’t even his room.)

haechan sleeps a few hours that night, warm and soft, dreaming of the days when he was still called lee donghyuck. 

#### iii.

"what do you mean, sir?" jeno asks incredulously. incredulous is a word that falls short of describing his state. he has been running his fingers through his hair for more than ten minutes now, unable to understand all the jargon his professor continued to spew.

"donghyuck won't be returning the same you knew him." dr byun's facial expression is unreadable. his voice is small, smaller than jeno has ever heard and he looks so unkempt. his bangs have grown out and are brushing the top of his glasses. 

"you're saying you knew where he was all along?" 

"jeno, nobody except for you and jaemin know that donghyuck is, in fact, missing. i told you to keep silent, didn't i?" 

"why now? you mean to say that donghyuck wasn't part of some busy exchange programme- where, in budapest? you mean he never went to london either? all those mails-" 

dr byun closes his eyes and rubs the bridge of his nose tentatively. 

"those weren’t fake, they were from him alright. i don’t know, i can't tell you yet, jeno. donghyuck will probably be sworn into secrecy before he's allowed to leave. 

_if_ he's allowed to leave." 

jeno can't believe this. he knew something was up the moment his friend had stopped answering calls and responding to any messages completely. all he ever got were short emails saying he’d reached his destination with vague description of the city, a little bit about his roommates and that he’ll contact jeno soon. soon never came after that last mail in april. 

the logical conclusion was that donghyuck didn’t want to speak to anyone back home. he’d had his heart broken over and over again within a few months. the research project he had been helping with was rejected at the first presentation by an egoistic chair. his work load had kept increasing and then he even attended mark’s wedding in february. and then…

then he’d fought with jeno. it was an old issue, something about...jeno doesn't even remember. all he remembers is that hyuck looked the same as he did when he'd first been heartbroken all those years ago. he can't forget the expression of hurt etched onto his childhood best friend's face. because he had never seen it before.

it was two days ago, on donghyuck's birthday that jeno and jaemin figured something was either horribly wrong with their friend, or they’d fucked up big time. 

he hadn't pestered them for gifts, hadn't responded to any form of contact and even his parents' cousins--donghyuck’s last living relatives--didn't know why. there were no sunflowers placed on his parents’ graves. 

if they were suspicious then, those suspicions had been confirmed when a letter arrived at their doorstep, dated sometime back to late april. it was donghyuck's handwriting alright (jeno would recognize that untidy scrawl anywhere, having been donghyuck's deskmate throughout school and university) and the paper looked dusty, as if it had been left on top of a pile ever since it was written. 

all questions he had asked in the letter were things he was supposed to know if he really _had_ read all the mail jaemin sent him. he didn't even know of their engagement and of renjun's accident in the skating rink from a while ago. 

the only person donghyuck ever trusted outside of his family and close friend circle was dr byun baekhyun, his clinical research coordinator. and that is who jeno knew to call about all of this.

"professor, you owe us an explanation. jaemin's been crying at home all morning and i don't...i feel so helpless." 

dr byun stands up from his chair and picks up the small clock his favorite student had gifted him last year with a huge smile on his face--one that put the sun to shame.

"jeno, don't expect too much because i wasn't informed directly either. whatever i know is pieced together from scraps of information i've managed to gather in the past four months." 

jeno drops his head into his hands, balancing his elbows on the table. 

for a few seconds there is nothing but the ticking of a distant clock and the entire office lays forgotten. 

he can think of nothing but his friend’s safety. the same friend who always stood by him, encouraged him and even brought him to jaemin. the same friend he had yelled at to go away and stop being so sulky over stupid things in life. they had argued before, but never this horribly. all of which happened a few days before news of the exchange program came up. 

a monster claws away at jeno's insides and he is going to let it do as it wished. as some form of sickly atonement. 

"the programme was real, at first-- a series of very long meetings actually. the sort you see during other science seminars and medical conferences but this was--i know it sounds strange--for the brightest new talents of scientific intelligence. and i'm just quoting the brochure. 

you do understand what i mean by _intelligence_ , jeno? all those underground research facilities guarded by the state. the ones we aren't allowed to talk about. donghyuck is the pride of our research team. naturally, he was on the list of candidates. hell, i didn't even think before giving in a letter of recommendation for this– he's been offered a job someplace like that before too. but he always declined.”

because of mark, jeno thinks, hyuck never wanted to be too far away from him, until things changed and he would give an arm and leg to never see mark again.

“there were going to be many famous professors attending,” dr byun continues, voice solemn and hands trembling, “the last day of the seminar was supposed to be an open debate for students on simple topics that had been often talked about in the past. the sort where they fought over which supplies are better and what sort of procedures need to be brought back or banned. it is fishy, of course, the lack of clear detail should have given it away.

from what i hear, it was supposed to be for healthy competition. _healthy competition_ my ass– but then an accident occurred. 

security was compromised. there's been some media coverage but...many people died and the survivors were taken away...where, we don’t know. they won’t tell us. and i think...i think they were sent out for this in the first place. someone in the upper ranks gave away our best talents, why, i don’t know.”

jeno sits up with a jolt.

“you mean, they were traded in for something?”

“tell me jeno, where do they need a variety of researchers? of healthcare professionals? and can’t ask for assistance openly?” they are drawing towards something sinister, he can tell. the grim set of his professor’s jaw and acute silence scares him out of his wits.

“a battlefield?”

“maybe, but not regular battlefields jeno...the sort of some unannounced war. maybe a preparation for one? i would like to believe donghyuck survived because you got a letter from him. they must have allowed some contact earlier. it's not their fault that they were stuck in between international _war deals_..." 

dr byun is just mumbling now and jeno sits there, tears sliding down his face in heavy droplets and he prays,honest to god prays, that hyuck comes back home, alive.

the drive back is empty. there are words running around his head in an endless stream. hyuck is smart. he must have left something. all those little mails, all the little contact that they did have, hyuck may have hidden code the same way he used to hide rocks in paper before throwing them at jeno's window when they were ten. 

or maybe not. jeno doesn't know anymore. the world needs to stop before everything spins out of control.

when he returns home a few hours later, cigarette smoke clinging to him like a second skin, he relays all the information to jaemin, who breaks down in tears once again. 

"we can't tell the others yet." jeno mumbles against his cheek, his fingers rubbing circles into the small of his lover's back. _if they haven't noticed, it's for the best, maybe they don't need to know._ jaemin's grip around his neck tightens and jeno can feel a new wave of warm tears spilling over his shoulder. "will he come back?" jaemin asks once he has calmed down enough, his throat still choking with grief. jeno doesn’t know. he wants to know. desperately.

"he must. if he doesn't, who'll walk me down the aisle, nana?"

in the blink of an eye, june ends. 

as the weather turns humid, the two lie down on their massive couch curled up under an oversized blanket, at the same place where they used to hold movie nights and were teased by their missing friend for being overly domestic. 

june has ended, but their anxieties have just begun to take root.

donghyuck's absence is extreme. 

they are living it, the absence as sharp as the blade of a new knife, with chills running down their spines at every mention of their sunny boy and a crushing feeling in their chests whenever they come across something he used to enjoy. 

donghyuck might still be alive, but him not being around is like a ghost that haunts them every moment--be it asleep or awake.

#### iv.

mark and mina lie next to each other, fingers intertwined and shoulders touching. the room is swallowed by night, a little bit of blue and a little bit of grey. the weather forecast has been predicting snowfall for a week already but not a single flake is in sight. it upsets both of them, having to deal with unrewarded frost on window panes every other morning. if it snows, it might just be beautiful enough to bring back all the depth that was taken away from them. 

"do you regret it?" mina asks, her voice a weak whisper but loud in the dead of their room.

"yes," the word rolls off his tongue without resistance, his heart telling him it should hurt when he says that but his mind tells him that there's already been enough lying. a little truth that hurts is all he needs.

"i regret it too." he knows she isn't lying. her eyes, set on the ceiling and glazed with emotion, tell him she isn't lying. he looks away. it's an intimate moment with herself, he shouldn't be intruding.

mina's gaze falls upon the moonlit face of her husband. he seems so fragile at times like these--late at night when the world seems to be asleep--tucked under a warm blanket, head placed on a soft pillow that reminds him of something. something he’s loved but lost. she can tell. her own pillow reminds her of things she isn't supposed to remember, of things she should have long forgotten being a respectable married woman lying in bed with her equally respectable husband. the word married has begun to haunt her. 

mark's bravado slips away and his stuttering breaths only speak of things he desperately wishes he had spoken when he had the chance.

she knows because she feels the same. she's a flower about to wilt. she doesn't know which flower, can't tell you if you asked. mark might say something delicate and golden (he doesn’t mean her, so she never asks. she simply stares). she craves intimacy, the touch of a loved one but mark isn't who she needs. never will be as long as his heart is in the fragile palms of a sunkissed chalice of love and light (and those are mark’s words, not her’s, stolen from burnished pages of a diary in the middle of another lonely night).

mina's ring snags the fabric of her pyjamas as mark pulls her hand closer and clasps it tighter. she squeezes right back.

an apology from one best friend to another.

kang mina loves mark lee. it is a well known fact, established by schoolmates, college friends, family. even headlines of famous celebrity tabloids agree on it.

kang mina loves mark lee in the way that she cares about what he eats and drinks. she cares for him when he feels unwell and cooks him food before leaving the house for a busy day. she loves him a lot, holding his hand during vaccinations and bringing him cute stationery. but she loves him in a way that she never wants to kiss him again or hold his hand without meaning. mina knows how it feels to lay in bed with mark, chest bare and heaving, skin slick and heart bleeding. she doesn't want to share a bed with him forever if it means she will never have the romance of her dreams. she loves him in a way where she cries with him when he misses donghyuck because mina loves donghyuck the same way.

it's platonic. 

has always been and being married has just proved that to her. they have been married six months. six months too long, both of them think.

she always thought of mark as a person meant to be by her side, having grown up together and showered together as toddlers and even interrupted each others' dates with messages asking for live updates. they dreamed of being there for each other and somewhere on the way, it was lost in translation. to be the person waiting at the end of a wedding altar for the other was something none of them wanted.

she hurts, physically and emotionally, whenever she leans into him and a hand rubs her shoulder or when she eats next to him, calm and comfortable. she hurts because it is easy to pretend that the person cuddling with her isn’t mark. that it's a face she ought not to remember. she nearly cries every time. 

however, the way mark avoids brushing up against her long hair and doesn't ever touch her chest gives him away as well. mina isn’t the only one pretending in this relationship. mark wishes that her warmth wasn't hers but rather a boy’s who glows like the sun and has hair that looks like honey to the eye. 

mina sighs. it's late. the clock hands keep moving silently, stealing whatever shreds of time she wants to gather and hide for herself.

mark squeezes her hand one last time before leaving it and turning away, the faint shape of lean muscle moving beneath his sleep shirt. mina runs warm palms over his tense shoulders, pressing down and soothing the knots just like she used to during exam season in high school. it brings back a flood of memories and she bites her lip. she wants the person in her memories to only be mark, but it isn't. she really does, but can’t.

"do you think i'm over it?"

it's in a small, private voice. mark’s voice is wavering. her hands still but she doesn't remove them, just presses harder in place. with mark, there are no warnings. no how to handle guides and she smiles. ass o’clock in the night is the perfect time to bring up everything that physically hurts.

"you've been on three successful dates so far, without even asking to run away. i think you're doing well, mark."

"really? i haven't...tried anything with any of the boys yet..." they close their eyes, lateness of the hour and heavy discussion overtaking them. mark shifts in his place.

_you've done it before. warm kisses and fleeting touches. countless times. you were just too scared to face your feelings back then._

"do you want to try something immediately?" she speaks, a little hesitant. they have been avoiding parts of this conversation ever since she began setting mark on blind dates. it's crossing the pious line drawn by marriage. but what use is that line when none of them want to be bound by it?

"no, no, i'll take some time before that. i'm, i don't want to. not yet."

"are you... comfortable with those kinds of feelings now?"

"i guess. i can’t say it for sure yet, that i’m comfortable but i know i...loved him. do you think if i tell him that, he’ll understand?" _do you think if i tell him that, he’ll forgive me?_

“i don’t know, but we’ll make it through. all the way till we can bring him back.” _he won’t, but if you keep trying, he will someday._

mark hums. conversation dies down and there's promise for a clearer admission on another, brighter day. someday, he’ll come out of the closet without fear.

mina should have known. the signs were always there. internalised homophobia. 

she should have warned donghyuck before things ever ran out of control. there had been so many instances where mark had fled. being faced with the idea of being romantically involved with someone of the same gender was strange to him. 

she had brushed it off as naivety at first. then came the time where he ran to her bedroom at fifteen years of age, having kissed a boy and crying because he liked it. 

mark himself often recalls the time he had run away from a game of truth or dare after being dared to kiss a boy. it's an embarrassment now, for both him and mina. she had simply pulled his notes towards himself and copied off the homework questions when he had whined about the entire incident at school.

she (really shouldn’t but still) feels responsible for the way things turned out between mark and donghyuck. she should have warned the younger boy when she noticed the look in mark's eyes as he stared at the hickeys donghyuck often left on his skin. his eyes spoke of uncertainty and fear more than affection. she should have intervened. isn’t that what best friends do?

mina could have said something when mark and donghyuck began cohabiting in college. her own heart used to spark with happiness whenever hyuck showed her pictures of them on midnight dates all across seoul. they were cute, who was she to interfere?

it had been a well guarded secret. nights spent together were covered up with concealers. turtlenecks became a staple. despite sharing the same flat, they never traveled together. the sudden announcement of kang industry's daughter getting engaged to lee corporation's younger son broke whatever they had. the little fights and break ups that used to happen every other week morphed into complete silence. donghyuck was worn out, she thinks. (no, she knows. she’s been worn out too, everytime her lover had asked her to answer him but she hadn’t.)

mark's stark refusal to acknowledge donghyuck as anything but a close friend--refusing to acknowledge the sweet sweet lover he had always been--fueled wedding preparations and widened the distance that had crept between them.

mina used to wonder if this is what every relationship came to after all.

her own rocky relationship crashed down with a loud thud and broke into small fragments, a sound masked by the chime of wedding bells and fake laughter. 

she couldn't do anything.

not for her lover, not for mark and not for donghyuck. 

(not even for herself and it’s shameful how she can carry a company on her back but not give into her own needs. she loves fiercely, but it's not for their good. It's not a love directed at mark.)

in the whirlwind called marriage she lost grip on the things that actually meant something to her (dreams she should have never harboured) and turned vicious enough to crumble someone else's.

_"keep him happy mina, please."_

_"stay happy mina, please."_

she wanted to choke on her own breath. out of everything that was supposed to be memorable of her wedding day, mina remembers forged smiles and kind words used as cover for separations whose aches ran deeper than their bones. 

the face of the man (her man, she wishes she could call him) who came to wish her good luck and bid her farewell forever was burnt behind her eyelids. the warmth of his hands never left her, even if he was miles away, possibly in the arms of someone who stood by their love for him. 

mark's face, bright and radiant, had turned hollow and complicated. his nimble hands had fumbled with the silk of his tie incessantly that day. the tie, she later realized, wasn't the one she had been asked to pick a week ago, but the one donghyuck had saved up for and gifted him on a birthday many years ago. his eyes had followed and teared up as the younger left the hall early. she knows because she had been dancing with him, her heart twisting with guilt.

(for once, mina feels that the emotionally tangled and complex facade of their relationship had fallen. it had been stripped bare and she had been forced to walk over it.)

relationships can be fragile, she realised as she cries into the tulle of her own reception gown an hour later, her lover gone and smudges of bright pink lipstick ruining the gold trimming. 

acting cfo of kang communications; a beautiful bride decked in everything pale and holy; blessed with a partner from the heavens and loved by all; kang mina, one hand of a business deal struck with promised returns (a deal that trampled both humanity and love).

she remembers wishing the cloth bunched up in her fingers had been black instead, to grieve, and to let grieve. she hadn’t slept that night, realizing what they had done. she should have rested instead of hiding in bathroom stalls and crying her eyes out. 

her eyes are heavy with sleep (and almost tears, too much of reminiscing is painful) and she forces them open for a second as she finally notices a few flakes of snow drifting past the window. it’s finally snowing and with the world being blanketed in white comes a blank slate to fill.

 _tomorrow_ , she murmurs to herself, _tomorrow_ , as she falls asleep.

The next morning, mina asks mark if he wants a divorce. 

#### v.

haechan sits on a granite staircase by the hospital backdoor. he's nursing a bleeding lip when yang drops down next to him with a glass of water in his hands and a moist cotton cloth in the other. 

haechan thanks him and takes the cloth, hissing in pain when he realizes that there's disinfectant on it. he curses yang who just laughs a little and then looks away. it's bleak and plain. dying patches of grass scattered across a rather ratty and small backyard, frost swirling over the stone walls that separate them from the rest of the warring world. he can’t see beyond, but from the third floor of the makeshift hospital that stands behind, he can see endless land scarred and scorched. there are trees past a point where it turns into woods and then there’s nothing. 

he expects nothing. in a place like this, he feels like everyone has been torn out of paper in a shape that somewhat resembles fallen snowmen. they float in the air as long as the wind carries them and then they’re stomped upon by heavy mud-laden boots the moment they realise they are nothing but as thin as a quivering leaf. 

haechan sighs and looks away. he's had a busy day. 

it's nothing short of a miracle that he remembers it is mark's birthday. he thought he was over the older already, but his heart refuses to heal. no amount of stitches and staples can put it back together at the moment. maybe it'll heal when he goes back home...wherever home can be. 

"it's fucking freezing." he drops the cloth on his lap and shoves his hands into the thin pockets of his doctor's coat. his skin is burning to the touch and the sting of cold air both soothes and hurts, ironically, like disinfectant.

"i know right." yang says, letting out a huff of air. his breath materializes as wisps of mist.

"yang,’’ haechan starts, a dull but ever-present glint in his eye, “do you ever think of...going back where you came from?" 

"all the time. i miss my family. keep it to yourself, i'm not allowed to tell you that i have a family." yang smiles good-naturedly and turns to face haechan with a finger on his lips. haechan gives him a quirk of mouth in return, it's a promise he will keep. he owes yang that much. 

"i have one too. not very close but they're there." _and my actual family--that's still alive to see me--is a group of crackheads that i miss beyond words._ but he can't say that. 

it's been more than six months and while he hasn't forgotten any of them, he sometimes has trouble remembering what they looked like when he last saw them. when he tries to recall chenle, he remembers green hair from a dare in school but doesn’t remember what colour his hair had been in february. he doesn't dream of them anymore (he used to, and they stood in them, at the edge of his bed just blinking, just breathing) and even though he is out here, melancholic because of a bruised lip and mark's birthday, he doesn’t quite feel the same as he did last year when-

he shivers. last year? time has flown by and even though this isn't the best place to be, the medical sector has it a lot better than the others. his fingers may have bled and his neck might throb with pain, but he knows he has it better than the thousands of people he has tried to patch up every day since he’s worked here.

last year on mark's birthday, he was busy smothering himself with self pity in the corner of a bathtub as a party raged downstairs. it seems like ages ago when he still had the leeway to sit and cry behind patterned shower curtains, completely clothed in an outfit he owned, with a can of cheap beer to drown his tears. it was supposed to be _their_ night, all with him wearing mark’s favourite clothes (silky pieces of fabric all easy to slide off his shoulders). 

they don't even have any drinking alcohol here because the staff (he scoffs) need to be alert all the time. they don't have time to fool around. 

there is no time to look for love in relationships that have been laid with a shroud, no time to let someone’s touch sear his skin. there is no time to sit down and lament the loss of something he never really had to begin with.

“let’s go back. they’ll have us on gunpoint if they know we’re slacking,” yang says, a warm hand squeezing the other’s shoulder.

as the two men stand up and head back inside, they are met with a familiar scene. people shouting, screams of pain, hisses and scathing curses. somewhere, a glass crashes and they know what it means. another person with a blooming bruise on their face. he hopes it isn't irene. there's abandoned blood bags by the medicine cabinet and he wonders what's happening. there's never been usable blood that was left like this in the open. 

the only wasted blood he's seen is from irreparable wounds and that which was spilled on the floor. sometimes, he's been made to taste it (a few run ins on the field, a few blows and a broken nose, the occasional whip that misses its target and hits his jaw) but has never seen packets of blood lying in the open. 

(they have harvested blood before, from dying men who can’t be saved, without testing because the recipient of said blood will also fight with his life on the line, will also inevitably die where all the bodies are sent to rot. and for that, if there exists heaven and hell, haechan will plead to be sent to the coldest corners of hell where the scum of humanity screams.)

he runs up to a nurse who looks paler than she is supposed to be. 

"what's wrong?" he asks, yang following him closely and equally piqued. 

"we have a torn dove. no, not torn– she’s been ripped open." 

haechan's insides lurch at the thought. his expression is mirrored by his friend, who looks horrified and disgusted. a dove that's been ripped open brutally is a warning. there's bound to be more and more bodies flooding the doors and there will soon be stricter security. he clenches his fists, long ragged nails digging into his palms to leave behind red crescents. 

a dove is, what they know to be a russian spy, at least in this place. someone who had endured torturous training and held secrets bigger than the unexplored vastness of the internet. 

the excess blood suddenly makes sense. it is the spoils of war, the remnants of whatever they could find in the place they attacked. and if it had been a clinic or a blood bank, haechan swears the words of his oath (already broken a million times) is scattered on the floor between ashes.

not even ten minutes later he is dragged into an operation theater and scrubbed if this is what it could be called. he finds himself -- a splatter of spirit on his skin and gloves on his hands -- standing next to a shaky irene and another person he knew by the name of momo. as he finishes pulling on a mask, she pulls him aside. 

"channie...it's the dove. we're going through her body to check for possible tracers and... stuff." 

haechan gulps, his eyes widening and heart pumping faster than he's ever felt before. the lights are switched on as armed men flood in to line the walls. silence falls and the putrid stench characteristic of death fills the room. the holed sheets are pulled away and-

then his heart stops.

#### vi.

"where's donghyuck?" mark asks one evening as he and jeno catch up at a local bar. it’s a place with many memories, both good and bad. it’s where mark first kissed donghyuck publicly. it’s where he announced his relationship with mina, where he snapped off his bond with hyuck. 

"hm...he'll be back soon. in a few days' time. you don't need to worry." jeno gives him his signature eye smile but mark knows the other person too well. there's something off about his tone. mark doesn't know what, but he guesses that when you've known a person this long, you can tell if something is troubling them with much more ease. 

"what's wrong, jeno? you always seem to avoid talking about him. you and jaemin, both, you guys just keep saying that he'll be back soon, but that's it." 

_you have no right to ask. you knowingly broke his heart._ jeno smiles wryly. 

the music changes in the background but he doesn't have the energy to recognise and sing along. he would, if he was as drunk as he wanted to be when he came here. he turns around his glass repeatedly, staring at the dark liquid that fills half of it. "it's... complicated, hyung. we'll tell you someday. we're waiting for hyuck too." he answers as briefly as he can without lying. he isn't good at lying and he knows it. 

mark's poker face shifts a little and he lets his head hang as he heaves out a long sigh.

there’s no way to explain how _badly_ he wants to see donghyuck. even if the younger spits at him, screams like death or shoves him down the han river, he will take it. he just wants to know if the younger is okay, and that seems to be about all jeno is willing to tell him. he trusts his gut, it tells him not to pry further. alcohol sloshes down his throat as he keeps himself from breaking down.

"well then, how's everything else?" jeno asks, unable to stand the stifling silence between them.

"okay, i guess." there's a forlorn look in mark's eyes and jeno wants to sympathise with him. he wants to hold the brunet's hand and tell him things will be fine but he has an inkling that they won't. things won't really be fine.

one mug of beer turns to a glass of whiskey which becomes a whole row of shots. 

"you know," mark starts, his cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling, "back in school, it always used to be the three of us. me, hyuck, mina...i guess i kinda wished it would always be like that. even when my parents went and sold me off. even when you and jaemin took him away from me. or was it my fault? she keeps saying that but she doesn't understand i know..."

he's not sober. he's spewing every thought that comes to his mind. and jeno sits there with pity in his eyes and pain in his heart. 

he resents mark for making his best friend go away, but in this moment, he loves mark like his own. who knows where the sunny days went? the days when they would crowd in a living room and stain carpets with ice cream and cheese. the days when there was laughter amidst stress. it took one moment to shatter their reality (or had they all been happy illusions?). 

mark wasn't the only one at fault. their friends ( _and even me_ , Jeno thinks) couldn't protect hyuck either. 

"hyung, he's not lost."

"and you still won't tell me where he is?"

the two of them end up drinking wordlessly for a while and then climb into a taxi. mark stops counting the orange streetlights when he finally hears jeno whisper.

"i'm sorry hyung, but i wouldn't tell you even if i knew..."

mark pats jeno's thigh and smiles.

it's another long night for both of them. 

#### vii.

the next morning, when the skinning of the dove's body is finished (and her remains have been respectfully disposed of), haechan trails off to the only place he knows, eyelashes moist and betraying. 

he thinks about this room, about his little abode in a place that he will never call his own. the entire room is bleak with grey walls, dull bed covers, a simple wooden desk, overhead lamps that automatically flickered on at sunset and turned off after dinner and a small cupboard to keep their clothes and toiletries. his eyes are tearing up again, his cheeks wetting. distraction, distraction-

he wants to call someone. maybe jaemin would talk to him, his lilting tone enough to make him forget.

below a makeshift calendar, lay his and irene’s mobile phones. dead and discharged; layered with dust. he was often tempted to find a charger somewhere -- someone had to have one -- but electric sockets were few. now that their heater isn’t plugged in, he could use it for a charger, but the risk isn't worth it. the two of them could be dragged out and thrown for unknown dangers to feed on them. they could be dunked into icy water or pelted with embers. 

_punishment is always severe in such places_ , he thinks as he absentmindedly runs a hand across his scarred forearm. and this had been punishment too.

the skinning -- a shudder wracks through his body -- was retaliation for closing their eyes and ignoring the calls. 

there’s only so much one can do to protect themselves.

he can't do it. not anymore. as much as he tries to erase it all from memory, vision is but a slave and his brain hates to forget things that hurt.

he can’t rebel. no matter how fearless he has always been, fearlessness is now a thing of the past. he fears breathing in the wrong place or being late. he fears letting his thoughts wander while everyone slaves away. 

he fears being the next one on the table, tissues cut open and guts spilling over the lesions drawn on his skin. worse, he imagines irene and yang, and hyo -- kind, kind nurse hyo -- standing over his still form, looking into his beady eyes fall lifeless with pain. 

he wonders if he is in russia right now, or maybe in europe but the wild mix of nationalities and accents force him to think it was possible that this place could be any cold part of the world (he wonders if vancouver was like this sometimes, then remembers puddles of morphine drying on the ground). 

nobody back home would ever come to know if something happens to him.

but should they? something whispers into his ear.

haechan falls onto the mattress like a limbless doll, with a dreadful headache and steadily growing nausea. he is trembling and he knows he won't be able to eat or drink for the next few days. he can't sleep either because even though this isn't the most gruelling thing he's done here so far...it is a reminder. of everything he's seen and done. 

it has been ages since sunlight last grazed the windowsill. today too, is a cold cloudy day, as if the heavens are in mourning of how wretched their children have become. 

the only warmth he can feel is from memories of laughing faces but they keep distorting with every passing night. there are faces -- white and blank -- with caps on their disastrous heads instead. haechan wonders if someday those faceless monsters will explode.

he wonders if he ever wants to return, he's a monster too...he can see the crimson flowing on his skin and pooling between his fingers. nothing can save him from dying a thousand deaths every moment he breathes. every moment is rugged and sharp like broken glass.

how will he ever begin to explain what's happening to someone on the outside? won't everyone abandon him? maybe he's already been abandoned. after all, he was the one that decided to pack his bags and ended up in this place solely because he had been left behind.

will sitting in a confessional for the rest of his life be enough? will any religion tell him he doesn’t have sins to pay for? he cannot fathom the look of horror on jeno’s face or the silence that will entail if any of them even hear of his deeds. he can’t be buried in the same grave as his parents anymore, for he has failed them- no, shamed them by bringing to existence an offense such as himself.

hot tears trail down his temples as he chokes out a sob and covers his face with an arm, too scared to look at his hands. 

he doesn't want to survive if this is what he's going to be forever, hollow and hurting. 

#### viii.

it is a day before mark's 26th birthday and they've been invited over. there will be a huge banquet the next day, for people from the company and their extended families, but the boys deserve something better, more intimate--more homely--in mark's opinion. jaemin knows mark thinks of them as family despite everything. it’s admirable and even a little awkward.

"when's hyuckie hyung returning? i haven't heard from him in ages." jisung comments offhandedly, but in a voice small enough that it only reaches jaemin, seated next to him, all the while digging through his bowl to find more pieces of chicken. he doesn’t know if it really was meant to be as nonchalant as it sounded. knowing jisung, the boy was pretending, like every other person on this table. pretending to not know what storms had brewed and are yet to pass over. 

jaemin freezes for a second, the movement unnoticed by everyone but jeno, and then lets out a forced chuckle, saying that hyuck's just fine and having fun traveling around. that they're hoping he'll return soon. 

because it is true that they're hoping, more like wishing with desperation unknown to the common man, to see him just once again. it has been that way for the past two months and they don’t know how long it will last. indefinite variables are always the worst.

jisung nods, his eyes a little relieved. the two youngest go back to bickering over different kinds of ramen, accusing the other of poor taste. mina and mark are engaged in a deep conversation with renjun, something about recent events in the newspaper. if there’s anyone who’s been keeping up to date with world news, it's renjun who is still recovering from a broken leg and needs more time to get back to the athlete world. 

jaemin shares a glance with jeno. the two of them are left alone to eat in silence as terror runs through their bodies at the thought of what donghyuck was doing or where he was. 

at the other end of the table, mina shakes off her nerves, calling for everyone's attention. 

she holds onto mark's hand, who intertwines their fingers. 

"guys, we have an announcement to make."

#### ✢. 

You are the reaper;

As my skin is stripped

and with the passage of time,

my flesh rots.

You leave behind nothing

but a skeleton,

bent and broken,

dented in places you couldn’t see

but touched.

You are the reaper;

grim and gaunt

for you only exist

in my fleeting memory.

**Author's Note:**

> it's a sensitive time for content creators across the fandom, please leave love for everyone in whatever ways you can. fan content creators provide such colourful worlds for free, without being asked, please continue supporting us. 
> 
> have a lovely day ahead.
> 
> \---
> 
> Lower your shoulders and Unclench your Jaw:
> 
> [Keep check of your Mental Health ](https://checkpoint.carrd.co/#)  
> [ChilledCow Lo-Fi](https://youtu.be/DWcJFNfaw9c)  
> \---  
> [ Keep in check with the pandemic ](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019)


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